SR89

WHEREAS, the Hawaiian language has a unique position in the historical and contemporary identity of the State of Hawaii; and

WHEREAS, the Department of Education, the second oldest state public school system in the United States, was originally administered, operated, and taught through the Hawaiian language as a Hawaiian medium education system; and

WHEREAS, during the nineteenth century, the Department of Education developed a system that provided for both Hawaiian medium and English medium education; and

WHEREAS, it was typical for children of all ethnic backgrounds raised in Hawaii to speak the Hawaiian language; and

WHEREAS, government statistics from the end of the nineteenth century show that the Department of Education, primarily through its Hawaiian medium education system, had produced among Hawaiian and part-Hawaiians the highest literacy rate of any ethnic group in Hawaii, including the Anglo-American ethnic group that had introduced writing to Hawaii less than a century earlier; and

WHEREAS, literacy rates for Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians were higher than the literacy rates for Anglo-Americans in the United States at that time; and

WHEREAS, Hawaiian medium education was prohibited by the federal government during the territorial period parallel to restrictions on the use of Native American languages in schools elsewhere in the United States; and

WHEREAS, an outcome of the prohibition of Hawaiian medium education was the extermination of the Hawaiian language in younger generations of Native Hawaiians and other children born and raised in the State of Hawaii; and

WHEREAS, another outcome of the prohibition of Hawaiian medium education was the destruction of a close correlation between island identity, and especially Native Hawaiian identity, with high educational achievement; and

WHEREAS, the percentage of those of Hawaiian ancestry in 1986 who were literate in any language was lower than the percentage of part-Hawaiians literate in both Hawaiian and English in 1896; and

WHEREAS, upon statehood in 1959, the people of the new State of Hawaii chose the Hawaiian language to represent this State in its official state motto and other representations of the multiracial population of these islands; and

WHEREAS, in 1978, the people of the State of Hawaii approved recognition of the Hawaiian language along with English as the official language of the State; and

WHEREAS, in 1978, the people of the State of Hawaii approved requirements that the Hawaiian language be taught in state public schools; and

WHEREAS, by the early 1980s, aspects of the Hawaiian language were taught in all public elementary schools and also as an elective in many state high schools; and

WHEREAS, in 1984, the non-profit ‘Aha Punana Leo began preschools that taught in the Hawaiian language; and

WHEREAS, in 1986, the Legislature lifted the federally imposed ban on using the Hawaiian language in classrooms; and

WHEREAS, in 1987 the Department of Education initiated the teaching of Hawaiian as a second language through the immersion method as a follow up program to Punana Leo preschools; and

WHEREAS, in 1990, the United States Congress passed the Native American Languages Act introduced by Senator Daniel Inouye that reversed the federal policy of eliminating all Native American languages, including Hawaiian; and

WHEREAS, in 1997, the Legislature passed legislation establishing a Hawaiian language college to be operated, administered, and taught through the Hawaiian language with programming from preschool through the doctorate level of education; and

WHEREAS, by the end of the twentieth century, Hawaii was by far the national leader in the teaching of its indigenous language as a second language in its English medium school system, through various methodologies including second language immersion; and

WHEREAS, by the early twenty-first century, the Hawaiian language college working in collaboration with the Department of Education and the ‘Aha Punana Leo had demonstrated in its laboratory school program that students in contemporary Hawaii could attend a school operated, administered, and taught entirely in Hawaiian and achieve academic success parallel to that achieved by the Department of Education in the nineteenth century; and

WHEREAS, accomplishments of Hawaiian language schools include a one hundred per cent high school graduation rate; an eighty per cent college attendance rate; graduates enrolled in programs at Stanford and Harvard universities; study of Japanese, Latin, and English in classes conducted through Hawaiian; and inclusion of students of non-Native Hawaiian as well as Native Hawaiian ancestry, with an overall student profile of approximately sixty per cent free and reduced lunch status; and

WHEREAS, the Legislature enacted Act 133, Session Laws of Hawaii 2004, providing for the reestablishment of a Hawaiian language medium education system that would reestablish within the Department of Education a system of Hawaiian language medium education that is operated, administered, and taught through the Hawaiian language in collaboration with the Hawaiian language college; and

WHEREAS, the Department of Education has been working with the Hawaiian language college and the ‘Aha Punana Leo for the past three years in developing a plan for P-20 (preschool to graduate school) Hawaiian language medium education; and

WHEREAS, the National Indian Education Association will be holding its annual conference in Honolulu in October 2007, with a special focus on Native American language teaching and use in the schools; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-fourth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2007, that the Department of Education is congratulated on its national leadership in Native American language teaching as a foreign language through various methodologies including language immersion; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Department of Education, ‘Aha Punana Leo, and Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikolani, the State's Hawaiian language college located on the University of Hawaii campus, are congratulated on cooperatively developing a P-20 Hawaiian language medium education model with an especially strong P-20 Hawaiian language medium education model at Nawahiokalani‘opu‘u School; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Department of Education, ‘Aha Punana Leo, and Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikolani are requested to work together to officially implement a pilot program to further the goals of Act 133, Session Laws of Hawaii 2004, and build upon their pioneering work at Nawahiokalani’opu’u School; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Department of Education, ‘Aha Punana Leo, and Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikolani are requested to implement the pilot program by September of 2007; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Department of Education, ‘Aha Punana Leo, and Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikolani are requested to share the history and current status of Hawaiian language medium education at the 2007 annual conference of the National Indian Education Conference to be held in Honolulu; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the Superintendent of Education, the Director of ‘Aha Punana Leo, and the Director of the State's Hawaiian language college, Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikolani at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

	OFFERED BY:	_____________________________

Report Title:

DOE; Hawaiian Language Medium Education Program

THE SENATE	S.R. NO.	89
TWENTY-FOURTH LEGISLATURE, 2007
STATE OF HAWAII